You are right @Ed1500, I receive so many shipments from AliExpress that now the postman is fed up with puting non-delivery notices in my mailbox, now he leaves the packages at the management office of my building, where they advance the tax for me when needed

@NeverDie yes I have some local shops, with very cheap delivery options, less than 1$ a;nd delivered the next day when they have stock. But unfortunately the inventory is pretty limited, I use them when the price difference is not worth the wait from AliExpress.

@NeverDie Oh dont worry, plenty of local online shops here for electronic components plus distributors for adafruit and similar.
However, I can order in china and have it delivered to my door often for less money than just the gas would cost me to drive to a local store, or to have it delivered from a local webstore.
The only thing is that sometimes I have to wait 2-3-4 weeks

@NeverDie indeed. but 2.7 Volt is a just a bit of a difficult value to work with and putting them in series makes the capacity drop, but I think one could run the attiny 13-25-45-85 from 1.8V so that might be a good combo

@NeverDie indeed. but 2.7 Volt is a just a bit of a difficult value to work with and putting them in series makes the capacity drop, but I think one could run the attiny 13-25-45-85 from 1.8V so that might be a good combo

Yeah, and the RFM69--which is what I use--runs as low as 1.8v as well, so it's possibly a good match.

@NeverDie 10F now we are talking. But yes I very well understood yr request to share experience. I acn only say thet the 1.5 F's i had performed well and with an RC network thrown together, they seemed in the right ballparc... but apparently seller now sells 1F and I cant vouch for those

The supercap is still a very viable alternative for smaller devices, so I will probably buy more in future and thus interested in which ones are good or not

ATmega328p's can run at 1.8v also. In theory it should be set to run at 4mhz, but neither I nor anyone I know of has had problems running at 8Mhz down to 1.8v. If you run with BOD off and internal 8Mhz resonator, it only consumes about 150na while sleeping. That's why I haven't bothered going to ATtiny's. Maybe there are other reasons to do so though?

@NeverDie I have used Attiny's mainly for their size. Pricewise, compared to a pro mini clone it is a bit foolish, unless you use the smd versions.
I had an attiny+ 433Mhz transmitter built in one of those garden lamps with a moisture sensor at the base where it sticks in the soil. Worked well, Not ideal, but it was nice to play around with

@Ed1500 I got the bigger brother of that one. Look at the workshop discussion. I can't wait to start testing this stuff with all the voltage regulators I got and see how much energy I can actually store in the same 2 caps both in series and parallel

Useful video if connecting capacitors in series. If using just one capacitor, though, I wonder whether there's any advantage to using the described shunt regulator circuit compared to simply using a 2.7v LDO voltage regulator?

By the way, if your supercap's will be in a higher than room temperature environment, you may have to de-rate their max voltage. In general, supercaps won't last as long at high temperatures. Worth checking the datasheet for the details if that's a possible concern.

I think the Swiss guy presents an interesting notion, and it's worth watching for that. However, I think his part choice of the TL431 is a poor fit for my solar application. According to the datasheet (cf page 6 of http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tl431a.pdf), the minimum cathod current required for regulation is between 0.4ma and 1ma. From indoors, that's generally more current than I'm receiving from the solar panel! Now, double that, because you'll need two of them.

Also, it can't handle very high currents either, which is, I presume, why the Swiss guy resorts to the transistorized circuit and/or the chinese supercap protector PCB circuit.

I haven't pursued it, because I haven't heard a strong argument as to why two or more supercaps are better than one for powering a mote. The economics of supercaps seems to favor a one supercap solution.

@gohan
Well, if you need more than 400F... maybe then. I'm sure there's a crossover point somwhere if the storage requirements get high enough. At that point, though, it would seem you're doing much more than powering a sensor mote.

Anyhow, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Maybe you've found an interesting use-case that I haven't even considered.

@alexsh1 I purchased one of the 700F supercaps after my prior post just to see, and sure enough it has a pretty terrible self-discharge rate: about 0.4-5v per day. With a boost converter, maybe it would be good for powering an LED garden light at night.... Not sure what else it might be good for.

I charged up this supercap 5 months ago and then set it aside. Checking it now, it still has 0.6v left on it. I thought it would be at zero! So, maybe it really did hold a useful charge for much longer than I thought....(?)

On the cheap supercaps I have they hold the 0.6v, they don't go to zero

Interesting. So, if we were to put a few high Farad garbage Chinese capacitors in series, using a balance circuit, such that each just holds 0.6v, then I guess we could actually hold a meaningful charge for a very long time? Then, using my new efficient boost converter, we could drain most of the energy out of them:https://www.openhardware.io/view/628/Efficient-Low-Current-Boost-Converter

It also nicely illustrates that what's really needed is charge balancing across supercaps, not merely overcharging protection. Otherwise you are much more limited by the weakest supercap in the series chain of supercaps.

what I meant is that they don't actually go to 0v even if you short them as you will always be able to measure some small voltage. I am no expert but my bet is that that 0.5/0.6v is kind of their bottom line where they don't hold any more useful energy below that.

For balancing there are SAB Mosfets that help to keep all the supercaps on the same voltage, but the reverse charge issue is the same for all series circuits, also LiPo worn out batteries can get to 0V and then getting reverse charged with all the consequent risk of fire.